


Riddle's Evil Inc.

by tomrian (transnymphtaire)



Series: Things I write when procrastinating [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 2 am ice cream, Alternative Universe - Phineas and Ferb, Anxiety Disorder, Inators, M/M, Minerva the Cat - Freeform, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), mysterious communication without explanation, nagini the robot, no magic, summer job
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-06-07 21:13:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6824380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transnymphtaire/pseuds/tomrian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are probably easier summer jobs, but the pay is good. Plus, it is rather fun... and Tom is rather hot, if somewhat insane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How to get a summer job...?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [under_that_sun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/under_that_sun/gifts).



> This is definitely inspired by Phineas and Ferb.
> 
> I make no promises about quality or logic.

When Harry decided to find a summer job, he had pictured working in the store down the street or help his neighbours out in their gardens. He had not expected anything even resembling  _this_ . In all honesty, he doubted he would have been able to make this up if he tried.

Harry had been walking down the street, a bag of groceries in hand, when he was suddenly dragged into a building as he was passing it. He hit his assaulter in the face on pure instinct, absently happy that the assaulter had grabbed the arm that he used to hold the groceries. It would have been a shame if he had to drop them.

“Ouch! What was that for?” his assaulter exclaimed and dropped his arm. Harry stared at him incredulously.

“You dragged me into a building! What did you expect?” he asked.

“A thank you! You were about to walk straight into the path of my freez-inator!”

Harry blinked. If possible, he looked even more incredulous.  
“Freez-inator?”

The stranger waved his hand, as if waving away the explanation.  
“It was way too goddamn hot, so I built it to make ice. Something went wrong and now it’s rolling down the street, shooting wildly. I’m going to get close to it and press the self-destruct button.”

“Okay…” Harry said with a nod. The stranger was definitely insane. “I’ll be going now. You should probably try filling an ice tray with water and put it in the freezer the next time you want ice.”

The stranger grabbed his arm again.  
“That’s brilliant! I can’t believe I didn’t think about that. Hey, do you want a job?”

“...a job?”

“You’d make a good assistant, I wager. What do you say? I’ll pay you £8.50 per hour.”

“That’s… that’s actually really good.”

“It is.” the stranger agreed. “You can even get your payment at the end of the day if you want.”

“Okay. Sure. What do I got to lose? I’ll take the job.” Harry answered. Even as he said it, he had a feeling that he would regret it. The stranger smiled widely at him. He hadn’t thought about it before now, but the stranger was wearing a white labcoat. Huh.

“Brilliant, just brilliant. I’m Tom Riddle, of Riddle’s Evil Inc.” he - Tom - said and shook Harry’s hand with great enthusiasm.

“Harry. Harry Potter.”

“Well, Harry. Do you think you can get close enough to the freez-inator to press the self-destruct button before everyone in town has turned to popsicles?”

Harry groaned. He already regretted it. The payment made it worth it though.  
“Why would you put the self-destruct button on the machine?” he muttered as he shoved the groceries at Tom. “I’ll be right back. Don’t drop my groceries.”

As he was running after an oddly looking machine that shot ice beams in every direction, he decided that maybe it wasn’t that bad. It was utterly ridiculous and life threatening, but it was probably better than sitting behind a counter or working under the sun the whole day.


	2. First day on the job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riddle shouldn't be let near anything, if only for Harry's sanity to be kept intact.

It was not without a certain degree of trepidation that Harry entered the tall, dark green building whose ominous sign declared that it belonged to Riddle’s Evil Inc. He was hit by surprise as the inside seemed to be an ordinary apartment building; though if he thought about it, it was rather clever. Collect the rent money from those crazy enough to live there, and use the money to build… inators? Well, to build weird potentially deadly things to solve problems that actually could have been solved in mundane ways. Definitely clever. He doubted Riddle was aware of how clever it was.

Harry walked over to the elevator - and he was definitely happy that the building had an elevator - and pressed the button. Riddle had not given him a key or anything - or even really a floor number at that; but if the outside was anything to go by, then his destination should be the top floor. If not, he would definitely eat his gloves. Speaking of.... Harry looked through his canvas bag after his pair of knitted fingerless gloves. Usually he would already had been wearing them, but he had been hiding his hands in the pockets of his jacket instead. It was not an ideal solution when he was supposed to be an assistant though, so gloves it was.

He found them and got them on just in time for the elevator doors to open. It eased his nerves a bit that the door was open, but it didn’t last long. After he had pressed the button for the top floor, a panel in the wall slid to the side to show a hand scanner. Harry stared unseeingly at it as his anxiousness grew. The elevator wasn’t moving and the scanner seemed to blink angrily at him. Hesitantly, Harry pressed his hand against the scanner without taking his glove off first. It scanned his hand, beeped in recognition, and showed the words “WELCOME HARRY POTTER” on the screen. The elevator started moving. Harry drew his hand back and let out a breath of relief. He didn’t even want to start considering how Riddle could have had coded his handprint into the scanner - glove and all - without… well, without his hand being present. It was probably for the best that he didn’t know.

When the elevator door opened again, he was met by smoke and the smell of something that had exploded. Harry hid his face in the fold of his elbow to not risk inhaling any of the smoke as he ventured into the lab that apparently completely covered the top floor.

“Riddle?” Harry yelled. “Are you alive?”

“Harry?” A voice came from somewhere in the smoke. “Yeah, I think so! Don’t mind the smoke, but could you please be a dear and open a window?”

Harry didn’t bother answering - except for muttering _ if I can find them _ under his breath. He wondered if he would see more if he took off his glasses or not, because the smoke was impossibly thick. It also smelled rather sweet after the odour of explosives had eased up. What in the seven depths of hell had Riddle been doing?  _ Would he even survive this summer job? _

The window entered his field of vision so suddenly that Harry almost walked straight into it. He stopped protecting his face with his arm so that he could open it, something that turned out harder than it should be. After a lot of tugging and pressing and swearing under his breath, he finally got the window to open. The first thing he did was to lean out of the window and take a deep breath of fresh air. Harry closed his eyes in pure bliss for a moment before he drew himself back inside. Now that one window was open, he could just as well go around and open the others. Looking around, he changed it to a few of the others. The majority of the walls were covered in windows, which he should already have known - he  _ had _ seen the building from the outside after all.

A few minutes later Harry finally felt like he had opened enough windows. When he looked over the lab now, he could actually  _ see _ ; which was definitely an improvement, or at least should have been an improvement. What he saw was Riddle bent over a mess of things in the middle of a what could only be described as chaos.

“I sincerely hope that you’re not expecting me to clean that up.” Harry said as he started to walk closer to the chaos, and Riddle.

“No no, don’t worry, I have Nagini for that.” Riddle answered, waving away Harry’s concern with a hand. “Your only job is to act like my… I think people call it common sense? That, and help me save the town when my inators goes wrong, like yesterday!” It was said so cheerily that Harry paused to question if Riddle had actually intended to turn everyone into popsicles yesterday and then changed his mind because… well, who knew? He mentally shook the thought away. He could consider it again later, but right now he felt like he should try to earn his pay in some way.

“What are you building?” Harry asked. It was a good start.

“I wanted a cake.” Riddle explained. “So I thought I should build something to make a cake.”

Harry mentally groaned.   
“If you want a cake, _ I _ can bake you one.” he offered. Riddle straightened up and turned to give him a big smile.

“That’s a brilliant idea, Harry! Simply brilliant. Yes, a lot less work than… this thing. Let me show you to the kitchen!”

“It’s not… it’s not in the lab, is it?” He wasn’t sure if it would surprise him if it was or not. Especially since Tom only blinked at him.

“And risk building a bomb when I get a midnight snack?”

“That… that shouldn’t be your certain. That shouldn’t be something that could realistically happen.”

“Welcome to Riddle’s Evil Incorporation, enjoy your stay.” Riddle answered with a grin. Harry suddenly felt uncomfortable. It felt more like the mad house. Could he still get another job?

“So… the kitchen?” Harry asked. He could at least get a day’s pay first. Getting paid for opening some windows and baking a cake didn’t sound too bad.

“Yes yes, this way.” Riddle started leading him back towards the elevator. Harry glanced at the windows. Should he close them first? There was still smoke in the lab, so keeping them open couldn’t hurt… he only hoped they wouldn’t get back to see that pigeons had taken over.

“Harry?” Riddle interrupted his thoughts. Harry shook his head slightly and followed.

The elevator doors opened as he stepped up beside Riddle, resulting in an awkward half step as Harry almost had stopped walking and now suddenly had to continue. He felt even more awkward as he stood next to Riddle in the elevator. Riddle pressed the button for the floor underneath them, and the wall panel slid open again. Harry resisted the temptation to ask how Riddle had gotten his hand print.

The elevator came to a stop only a moment later. The doors opened to reveal a corridor. Harry felt immensely sorry for Riddle’s neighbours. It couldn’t be easy to live under a lab that belonged to someone without common sense and with pyromanic tendencies. Riddle glanced towards both ends of the corridor and gave a sigh of relief. Harry gave him a questioning look.

“One of my neighbours always tries to invite me in.” Riddle stage-whispered. “I think she’s a nymphomaniac or a cannibal, or both. She always talks about how delicious I look.”

Harry felt immensely less sorry for Riddle’s neighbours.   
“You could tell her to stop?” he suggested. Riddle gave him a horrified look. Harry shook his head. He shouldn’t get involved.

“Right. Your apartment?”

Riddle finally stepped out of the elevator, and crossed the corridor to open the door in front of them. Harry couldn’t help but wonder how Riddle’s neighbour managed to catch him when they entered Riddle’s apartment within a minute of leaving the elevator. Perhaps she just waited outside the elevator? Riddle should just invest in a staircase from his apartment to his lab. Harry decided against suggesting it for the time being, and focused back on what was happening around him instead.

While Harry had been lost in thought, Riddle had taken them to the kitchen.

“What kind of cake do you want?” Harry asked as he took the liberty to start looking for ingredients.

“Zucchini cake.”

Harry paused to look over his shoulder at Riddle. Yes, Riddle looked serious. Zucchini cake it was then.

“I hope you actually have zucchini.” Harry sighed and went back to picking out ingredients. He did find a zucchini in the fridge, as well as eggs and a lemon. He wasn’t sure what ingredients actually went into a zucchini cake, but he could improvise. At least his improvisation wouldn’t end up with an explosion. Speaking of explosions… turned around to see Riddle looking slightly lost.

“Sit down and don’t touch anything.” Harry ordered. It delighted him that Riddle did as he said.

Five minutes later, Riddle was looking over his shoulder. Harry mentally groaned. So much for Riddle obeying orders.... It had been some really good five minutes. He would treasure the memory of them.

“Have you never made a cake before?” Harry asked exasperatedly.

“No.” Riddle answered with a tone of wonder. “It’s very green.”

“It’s zucchini.”

“I didn’t expect it to be green.”

“...have you ever had zucchini cake before?”

“No.”

“Riddle, why am I baking you a zucchini cake if you don’t even know if you like it?”

Harry could feel it when Riddle shrugged, so close were they.

“I had a craving.”

“I’m going to poison your cake.” Harry promised.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to tell me that you plan on poisoning me…”

“Do you… do you ever shut up?”

“No.”

“I demand a raise.”

“I’ll pay you double today if the cake is good.”

“You don’t even know if you like zucchini cake.”

“See, if I like the cake, then you’re good at your job and deserve a raise.”

“Turn on the oven, will you?”

Harry sighed as Riddle finally moved away from him. He didn’t feel safe with Riddle so close to him, since it would put him in the eye of the storm if anything happened, In hindsight, he wasn’t sure if he should have trusted Riddle with a task so potentially dangerous as turning on the oven, but luckily nothing happened. Wait.  _ Wait wait wait wait, did I say what degrees to turn the oven to? _

He turned around. It felt like he moved in slow motion. Harry opened his mouth to say something - anything - and then… the world rushed back to speed as the glass of the oven exploded.

“You know what? I’m done.” Harry said. He pushed the bowl of batter into Riddle’s hands and walked out of the apartment.

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” Riddle called after him. Harry left the apartment door open behind him and pressed the elevator button as hard as he could. He would have to pick up a book on meditating if he would survive this job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry's gloves are a plot point. Amazing.
> 
> Nagini is a robot. Because I can. The neighbour is Bellatrix.
> 
> Riddle has one very quickly exploding oven.
> 
> I love your comments x


	3. Still the first day on the job because Harry is too good of a person

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has a lot of anxiety about a lot of things, but anxiety over Riddle takes the cake. Literally.

On his walk home, Harry’s conscience turned on him in full force, nagging him about stupid things like how he hadn’t earned his pay for the day and he hadn’t checked if Riddle was unharmed after the oven exploded and for all that he knew Riddle would probably eat the raw cake batter and get salmonella and die and it would all be Harry’s fault and fuck, Harry needed to go back before he worked himself up into an anxiety attack. Fucking shit, Riddle would send him to an early grave.

It was a very disgruntled Harry that entered the apartment building he had left not even twenty minutes ago, a box with pistachio cake in his hands. He had been unable to find zucchini cake, and gone for the next best thing. Hopefully Riddle would accept it as an apology, assuming he hadn’t died without Harry’s supervision. Honestly, how had Riddle managed to survive up until now? Harry was afraid to ask.

He took the elevator first up to the floor that Riddle lived on, pleasantly surprised when the elevator started without him having to scan his hand first. Apparently the hand scanner was only when riding the elevator to and from the laboratory. He should reconsider pitching the idea about a staircase to Riddle, as it would help his anxiety a great deal if he never had to see the hand scanner ever again.

When Harry stepped out of the elevator, the first thing he noticed was that the door to Riddle’s apartment was still open. He really hoped this meant that the man was inside the apartment, but he wouldn’t place any bets on it. At least no smoke was coming out of the apartment. Currently. Yet.

“Riddle?” he asked as he stepped out over the threshold. There were sounds coming from the kitchen, so it was that direction Harry went towards.

“He’s in his laboratory.” a female voice answered as he stepped into the kitchen. Harry almost dropped the box of cake, because that was not a human. That was a robot. Android. Robot. It was something almost resembling a human, with real hair and skin, but still a definite robot look. There was nothing human-like about that mouth for example. It definitely wasn’t able to open, something he felt himself being thankful for. The disembodied voice part was a whole other thing that he wasn’t going to think about.

“Are you… are you by any chance Nagini?” he asked awkwardly, remembering the comment that Riddle had made earlier.

“I am. You must be Harry.” Nagini answered, and gave him a highly unsettling smile. Harry hadn’t assumed  that that mouth _could_ smile. He took a few steps backwards until he was no longer in the kitchen. This day just kept getting worse.

“Okay. I’m leaving. I’m gone. Bye.” he said, and turned on his heel. He was back inside the questionable safety of the elevator within a minute. He’d take the hand scanner over robots any time, any day. At least a hand scanner couldn’t potentially turn rogue and murder him.

After he had went over the ever anxiety-inducing action of scanning his hand, Harry was soon at the laboratory floor. To his immense relief, there was neither smoke or pigeons. What there was, was a cat with a hat on flying through one of the open windows as a jingle introducing said cat as “Minerva the Cat” played in the lab. Harry promptly dropped the cake box on the floor.. He had been gone for twenty minutes. Only  _twenty_ minutes.

“Can I quit?” he asked the seemingly empty laboratory. He couldn’t actually find Riddle anywhere, which did not help his anxiety in any way or form. To make things worse, the cat was standing on _two_ legs. “Why is there an introductory jingle for a cat anyway? _Why_ is a cat in here?”

As Harry was mumbling to himself, the cat had decided that the situation for now was harmless and decided to get closer. Harry therefore found himself blinking rather stupidly at an outstretched paw that held a business card between two claws. He looked around once - twice - to make sure this was really happening before gingerly taking the card which read;

 **Minerva the Cat  
** **O.O.T.P Agent**

Okay. He was most likely dreaming. There was no other way to explain this madness that was apparently his life. Harry pocketed the business card and looked around the lab once more.

“Have you seen Riddle?”

And now he was talking to a cat. Great. Couldn’t get better. Wait-

“Did you just…? How did you do that?” he questioned and shook his head. “Oh well. I work here, but thank you for your concern. You seem like a cool cat. Don’t you have anything better to do?”

He waited for a moment, and there it was again. Okay. He could possibly work with this.

“Owned by some kid, huh? Nice. I guess this is more exciting. So… are you gonna hang out here or? Because I think the pistachio cake is still edible.”

When Riddle finally came back five hours later - from god knows where - Harry decided that he should probably keep the job. He had spent the day having tea and cake with a cat, not to mention actually held and intelligent conversation. He was to some degree worried about what Riddle had gotten himself into, but the man was alive, and Harry got paid double. Not to mention, Riddle’s smile when he had seen Harry in his laboratory had been pretty brilliant…. but Harry wasn’t going to think about that. No Way. He had enough on his plate with this summer job already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did say that Nagini is a robot.
> 
> And Minerva is a cat. O.O.T.P stands for.... *drumroll* The Order Of The Phoenix. Surprise.  
> You gotta love the mysterious communication without explanation.
> 
> I'm sorry for not updating! I had a bit of a block when it came to this chapter.
> 
> As always, I love your comments x


	4. This would've been better if it was Dead Girl Walking but there's ice cream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2 am is meant for sleep but other things can also be pretty nice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have forgotten that this fic existed and also forgotten where the hell my notes for it are but I still love this

After the eventful day, Harry longed after nothing more than sleeping for 12 hours, and maybe after never leaving his bed again. It was a very good bed, with a soft mattress and fluffy pillows. Perfect to spend the rest of the summer in if not for one tiny issue - his employer seemingly had no concept of professional work relationships or boundaries whatsoever.

It went against all of Harry’s beliefs to wake up before 8 am during the holidays, yet here he was - wide awake at 2 in the morning, quietly staring at the man that should not by any means be able to be currently sitting on his bed. Of course, this was the same man that had managed to get a hand scanner to scan his glove-clad hand without Harry giving away anything, so he shouldn’t be too surprised. Well, except for the detail that he lived on the second floor and there was nothing outside that could assist someone in climbing into his room.

Riddle seemed completely unaware of any of these very important problems as he smiled widely, just staring at Harry’s barely dressed form. Harry was inexplicable thankful that he slept in a tank top and shorts as his blanket had escaped to the floor before Riddle’s arrival woke him up. The feeling of Riddle sitting on his legs would certainly have been more awkward if there was less covering him up - not that it wasn’t awkward already. Harry - thankfully - had far more important things to get his anxiety worked up over. Like the very important fact that his hands were bare because sleeping in gloves was a bit of a hassle and he never expected anyone to enter his room in the middle of the night and his hands were bare and he couldn’t breathe and Riddle was far too close to his face-

Wait. Harry blinked, suddenly shocked into calm as he finally reacted to Riddle being nose-to-nose with him.

“Are you… are you sexually harassing me in the middle of the night?” Harry asked, breaking the silence at last. He couldn't even muster up any surprise at the idea, as he definitely didn’t have any high thoughts of Riddle so far. Then he blushed as the implications of Riddle being on his bed, over him, almost close enough to kiss, finally washed over him. Harry was very thankful for the dark. And his shorts. And that Riddle wasn’t sitting near his crotch.

So he was a hormonal teenager, and Riddle was too hot for it to be fair. Nothing to think about.

“My parents are in the other bedroom, so like, keep your sexual harassment to work,” Harry continued before he could properly think it through. “Not that you should sexually harass anyone!”

“I want ice cream,” Riddle answered, not acknowledging anything that Harry had just said. Harry decided that it was for the best; he was already having a hard time looking anywhere near the vicinity of Riddle’s face because of the pure embarrassment taking over him.

“It’s 2 am.”

“I want ice cream.” Riddle repeated it more slowly as if it would have more of an impact. Harry had too many thoughts running through his head for any impact to be made at all.

“We might have some in the freezer.” Harry shoved Riddle off and got up from the bed. There was no way there was any store open to buy ice cream at 2 am, and he wasn't very keen on leaving the house anyway. He made a mental note to make sure that Riddle’s freezer was always stocked with ice cream in the future.

It only took them 30 minutes to leave Harry’s room, sneak downstairs, get ice cream, and wind up on the living room floor - both with their backs resting against the sofa. Harry was slowly eating his vanilla ice cream while Riddle was working on some sort of monstrosity consisting of three different kinds of chocolate ice cream and liquorice sauce. Harry didn’t even know that they had liquorice sauce, but then again, his mum did like liquorice unlike him and his dad. There was no question whatsoever over why they had three kinds of chocolate ice cream - that was all on his dad.

“You know,” Harry said between spoonfuls of soft vanilla. “I would feel way better about you hanging out in my living room in the middle of the night if I knew how old you are.”

“Two decades and one lustrum,” Riddle answered, liquorice sauce running down his chin, his eyes glancing quickly towards Harry before returning to the ice cream monster in his bowl.

Harry decided to just assume that Riddle was in his 20s for now and look up what the hell a lustrum was later, as well as to not mention the liquorice sauce because it made Riddle seem even more childish, and although Harry would never admit so out loud, he found it slightly adorable.

“I’m one year short of two decades,” Harry said, mostly to keep the conversation somewhat going. “My birthday is the end of July tho.”

“I’ll bake you a cake,” Tom promised.

Harry stared at him for five very long minutes, before going back to his now melted ice cream. It was going to be a long summer. Hopefully, it would be devoid of any more impromptu ice cream dates and break-ins. Or any more attempts from Riddle to make a cake.

If he survived the summer without getting PTSD, he would actually be surprised. Riddle was pretty nice right now though....

Harry looked over, only to find Riddle asleep, head dangerously close to his bowl of half-melted ice cream. Adorable fucking idiot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I may have gotten into Heathers and Be More Chill, like, during this week, and I've been into Dear Evan Hansen for some months now, and if that shines through, it's because I'm a goddamn nerd.
> 
> Anyone figure out their ages from this? ;););)
> 
> Also obviously Lily likes liquorice and James buys too much chocolate ice cream. It's totally canon.
> 
> (did Harry ever put on his gloves who knows!! what is this plot point even)

**Author's Note:**

> Worth continuing? Yes? No? I mean, I'm going to continue it, but still.
> 
> Do come up with suggestions for Tom's inators, or I'll just look up what Doofenshmirtz has done.


End file.
